Le Mans Legends: The Finishes - 2010. The Day The Peugeots All Died.

This one isn't the most classic of finishes. In reality, it was a bit of a massive margin. But not every finish has to come down to the last lap to be full of drama......

#The Cast

The 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans saw 55 of the best racing machines take to the French countryside on the weekend of 12th June, the 78th running of the classic endurance test. There was a significant supporting cast, with no less than 18 P1’s taking the start. The petrol powered cars from the likes of Aston Martin, Drayson, Ginetta, Oreca, Rebellion, and even Kolles running an older, slower Audi R10 TDI, adding a great flavour to the event to complement the diesel machines of the Audi R15 TDI plus and the Peugeot 908 HDi FAP.

LMP2 was a question of who could catch the HPD machines. This was a class for so many manufacturers, with entries constructed by Ginetta and Lola making up the majority of the chasing pack. Oak Racing had their evergreen Pescarolo 01, Norma, Radical and even small French team Weiter Racing made an appearance in their Zytek machine.

GT1 was a small but mental grid with Aston DBR9’s, the Ford GT1, the Corvette C6.R, a Saleen and a Lambo with some of the best drivers ready to go. This was also the last time the GT1 beasts would be seen at Le Mans, so it is always a bit special to win the last one.

GT2 was even more mental, Corvettes starting on pole, with Ferraris, a BMW M3 art car, Porsches, an old school Aston Martin Vantage, and even Jaguars and a Spyker rounding out the 17 gar GT2 grid.

But all the focus was on the front 7. It was a battle between the pace of the four Peugeots, and the efficiency of the three Audis.

#Qualifying

The ACO wanted to restrict the pace of the prototypes to 3:30, so they mandated a new restrictor, and reduced the boost, for the diesels. ^WHERE ^HAVE ^WE ^HEARD ^THAT ^BEFORE… ^^AHEM.…

It didn’t work.

Pole was set on Day 1 with a blistering 3:19.711 set by the number 3 of Sebastian Bourdais, Pedro Lamy and Simon Pagenaud.

The #9 of Mick Mark MIKE Rockenfeller, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas was the fastest of the Audis, 3:21.9, 2.2 seconds back. Pace advantage to Peugeot. Would the efficiency of the Audi’s prevail? A gruelling 24 hours would tell the story.

#The Race Start

The race got underway under clear skies and a furiously waved tricolour, as the four Pugs took off from the front of the grid and started to check out. Early signs showed that the efficiency v pace battle would go a long way in to the race before we truly knew what would happen. But unfortunately, the race was neutralised after Nigel Mansell went around on the run to Indianapolis and retired.

The Audis found themselves one Safety Car behind the Peugeots early doors as a result. “This is just bad luck” said Dr. Ulrich.

And when the race resumed, he was right. The pace the two diesel makes were running meant that the Peugeots were not going to be far enough ahead to cover the 2 fewer stops the Audis would make. As Allan McNish said pre race, the Peugeots would have to be pushed to their absolute limit. And perhaps beyond?

#First signs of Trouble

We soon got our answer. Before the 3rd hour was done, the #3 Peugeot in the hands of Pedro Lamy had a significant suspension failure. Into the pits he went, and it took no time at all to determine the car was cooked. To quote Oilver Quesnel, Peugeot Sport director “We has a right suspension failyure, the car is finished.”

One bullet gone. Still three Peugeots in the race, so no need to panic yet.

The race started to settle down, with Cars 1 and 2, and the Team Oreca Peugeot #4 in 3rd place. The Audi #7 of Tom Kristensen was leading the charge of the Audi brigade until he made a mistake. Yes, even Mr. Le Mans can make them. To be fair to him, he was balked by what is possibly the most iconic BMW Art Car. This cost TK and the team 3 laps, but it could have been so much worse.

This remained the case until the eighth hour, when the #1 of Alexander Wurz, Marc Gene and Anthony Davidson encountered an alternator which wasn’t alternating. They also dropped a few laps and came back onto the track in 7th place.

So the #2 was the last remaining factory Pug running untroubled. Were they really pushing the cars to breaking point? This was their race to win, what’s happening?

#The battle starts to play out

Before the halfway point, we started to realise what was unfolding. The Pugs were being pushed to breaking point, while the ever-reliable Audis were running without mechanical abnormalities, as you had come to expect from the Ingolstadt operation.

And just as the clock struck 2am, the Team Oreca Peugeot #4 in the hands of Loic Duval made a stop for a driveshaft issue. There was an epic commentators curse here as well!

As the sun broke over a beautiful French morning, Nicholas Minassian made hay in the #2, setting fastest lap after fastest lap to try pull a margin on the #8 and #9 Audis behind. Approaching the end of Hour 16, the car was the best part of 2 laps ahead of the Audi competition, and could start to relax in the knowledge that they now had enough of a gap to cover off the efficacy run the Audis were on, and make it’s way to the top step podi…..

Is that smoke? Yep. That’s fire!

Coming into Tertre Rouge, the engine failed spectacularly. A gutted Frank Montagney stepped away from the machine, and The #2 would go no further.

#Ingolstadt Reliability To The Fore

Audi were back in the race. Infact, the #9 was ahead of the #8. Peugeot #1 was in third, two laps behind, with a very angry short Englishman named Anthony Davidson doing everything he could to get those laps back. Would the car survive though?

Coming into the last three hours of the race, it looked like the #9 was going to win. The #8, in the hands of Andre Lotterer had an argument with the tyres at Arnage and broke the car’s front end in the process. He was still in second, a mere 20 seconds of the #1 Peugeot who was still on a scintillating pace. And the drivers in the Oreca #4 machine was doing all they could to take fourth from the #7 crew.

Then, catastrophe. The Alexander Wurz #1 machine limped home with an engine problem, and the oil trail on the pit lane was a tell-tale sign that the car was kaput.

This means the #9 and #8 were assured of their podium positions, barring disaster. But could the privateer team that could, the Team Oreca #4, take the final step on the podium?

No.

The same engine fault that claimed the two factory machines, would also claim the #4 with 75 minutes left to go. The emotion for everyone was all too much. Hugues de Chaunac broke down. Liz Halliday, in commentary, was devastated. Audi wanted no part of the television cameras. u/kiwichris1709, in hist first ever Le Mans event, was devastated for them.

#The Fallout

So, it was an all Audi podium. The #9 of Rockenfeller, Bernhard and Dumas was a lap up on the #8 Lotterer, Fassler, Treluyer super-pairing, and the #7 of Kristensen, Allan McNish and Dindo Capello bringing it home 3rd.

The leading LMP2 machine, the Strakka HPD of Nick Leventis, Danny Watts and Jonny Kane came home 5th overall.

And GT2 beat home the GT1 class in a rather ignoble end to the life of the GT1 class. The Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 997 of Marc Lieb, Richard Leitz and Wolf Henzler finished 11th overall, and the Larbre Competition Saleen won GT1 in 13th place.

Only 27 of the 55 started were classified.

Of the race, Allan McNish said:

I’ve not been involved in a Le Mans like this one in my 10 previous starts. It turned on its head two or three times.

The issue with the Peugeots turned out to be an identical conrod failure on all their cars. Tema Principal, Bruno Famin put the failures down to how quick they were going.

Indeed, the track benefited from high levels of grip this year, so the engines spent longer at full throttle than we expected. At the same time, the weather stayed cool and, unlike previous years, the air/air intercoolers did not become clogged up. The filling of the combustion chambers remained extremely efficient throughout, which in turn meant that the performance delivered by the engines was particularly high.

It’s also worth pointing out that Audi set a distance record this race, 5,410.713 kilometres. This record still stands today. 2010 was also the start of 5 more years of Audi domination of the event, the second phase of their 10 wins in 11 years.

It makes you wonder what could have been, had the Peugeots just managed to finish.